In the future, employees would be able to work longer on individual days as long as a maximum weekly working time is adhered to. A draft bill now provides further clarity about the plans: The Federal Ministry of Labor does not want a blanket abolition of the eight-hour day. It should apply primarily to employees with a collective agreement. In companies without collective bargaining agreements, the current daily working time limit would remain the same.
This emerges from a draft bill from the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (BMAS), which is available to the editorial team. According to the ministry, this is a working draft that has not been finalized. The article clarifies what changes the draft specifically envisages for working hours, what is behind it and what the current legal situation looks like.
What does the Working Hours Act regulate today?
The Working Hours Act (ArbZG) stipulates that working hours may not exceed eight hours per working day. The aim is to ensure the safety and health protection of employees. However, current law already allows considerable flexibility. Daily working hours can be extended to up to ten hours if appropriate compensation is provided within six months or 24 weeks.
There are also numerous exceptions for certain industries and activities. These are usually regulated via collective agreements or on their basis in company or service agreements.
What is the federal government now planning in the draft bill?
The Federal Ministry of Labor would like to distribute working hours more flexibly, for example through longer working days on individual days with corresponding compensatory times elsewhere. The previous maximum limit of eight hours per day is to be lifted and a maximum weekly working time of 48 hours is to be introduced instead. As can be seen from the draft, the health protection of employees should be explicitly guaranteed.
In addition, it is stated that the Federal Ministry of Labor would like to expand the “leeway for collective agreement regulations and, under certain conditions, for company agreements”. This makes it clearer who would benefit from a new regulation: The new, flexible rules should not automatically apply to all employees, but to employees with collective agreements or company agreements. This means that only employees in collectively agreed companies would initially benefit from the planned flexibilization. In Germany, according to the Federal Statistical Office, this is around every second employee. For everyone else it would remain the eight-hour day.
Why is the government planning reform?
The federal government made up of the CDU, CSU and SPD announced in the coalition agreement that it would bring German working time law into line with the European Working Time Directive. This is intended, among other things, to improve the compatibility of work and family. The EU directive stipulates that the average working time per week must not exceed 48 hours.
What criticism do employers, unions and coalition partners express?
Federal Labor Minister Bärbel Bas’s proposal has met with a lot of criticism from employers, unions and within the coalition. Employer President Rainer Dulger explained that the draft “does not meet the requirements for a flexible, digital working world at any point”. Oliver Zander, President of Gesamtmetall, put it even more sharply: The draft is a “relapse into old regulatory patterns” and the ministry’s approach borders on refusing to work.
The Union also rejects this coupling. “A maximum weekly working time creates considerable flexibility in a large number of professions. We want to make this possible for all employees, regardless of whether they are bound by collective agreements or not,” said Marc Biadacz (CDU), spokesman for the Bundestag parliamentary group for labor and social affairs, to the “Handelsblatt”.
The attitude of Bas herself is also interesting: at the federal congress of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) in May, she made it clear that she had not touched on the topic on her own initiative, but that it was in the coalition agreement.
What happens next?
Currently only the BMAS’s draft bill is available, which is currently being voted on by the departments. This is the earliest stage in the formal legislative process. The coalition has announced that it will adopt the reform package, which includes a working time reform as well as a pension and tax reform, before the parliamentary summer break. The Bundestag meets for the last time in the first week of July before members take a break until September. Given the widespread criticism, it remains to be seen whether an agreement will be reached by then.
Mara Marx is a volunteer at Human Resources.
